Don’t fear AI, fear power-hungry humans

Don’t fear AI, fear power-hungry humans

Story by Big Think

We live in strange times, when the technology we depend on the most is also that which we fear the most. We celebrate cutting-edge achievements even as we recoil in fear at how they could be used to hurt us. From genetic engineering and AI to nuclear technology and nanobots, the list of awe-inspiring, fast-developing technologies is long.

However, this fear of the machine is not as new as it may seem. Technology has a longstanding alliance with power and the state. The dark side of human history can be told as a series of wars whose victors are often those with the most advanced technology. (There are exceptions, of course.) Science, and its technological offspring, follows the money.

This fear of the machine seems to be misplaced. The machine has no intent: only its maker does. The fear of the machine is, in essence, the fear we have of each other — of what we are capable of doing to one another.

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Marcelo Gleiser
Marcelo Gleiser is a professor of natural philosophy, physics, and astronomy at Dartmouth College. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a recipient of the Presidential Faculty Fellows Award from the White House and NSF, and was awarded the 2019 Templeton Prize. Gleiser has authored five books and is the co-founder of 13.8, where he writes about science and culture with physicist Adam Frank.
How to free our kids - and ourselves - from tech addiction, with Gaia Bernstein

In today's podcast episode, law professor Gaia Bernstein talks about the challenges of keeping control over our thoughts and actions, even when some powerful forces are pushing in the other direction.

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Each afternoon, kids walk through my neighborhood, on their way back home from school, and almost all of them are walking alone, staring down at their phones. It's a troubling site. This daily parade of the zombie children just can’t bode well for the future.

That’s one reason I felt like Gaia Bernstein’s new book was talking directly to me. A law professor at Seton Hall, Gaia makes a strong argument that people are so addicted to tech at this point, we need some big, system level changes to social media platforms and other addictive technologies, instead of just blaming the individual and expecting them to fix these issues.

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Matt Fuchs
Matt Fuchs is the host of the Making Sense of Science podcast and served previously as the editor-in-chief of Leaps.org. He writes as a contributor to the Washington Post, and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, WIRED, Nautilus Magazine, Fortune Magazine and TIME Magazine. Follow him @fuchswriter.
Time to visit your TikTok doc? The good and bad of doctors on social media

Rakhi Patel is among an increasing number of health care professionals, including doctors and nurses, who maintain an active persona on Instagram, TikTok and other social media sites.

Rakhi Patel

Rakhi Patel has carved a hobby out of reviewing pizza — her favorite food — on Instagram. In a nod to her preferred topping, she calls herself thepepperoniqueen. Photos and videos show her savoring slices from scores of pizzerias. In some of them, she’s wearing scrubs — her attire as an inpatient neurology physician associate at Tufts Medical Center in Boston.

“Depending on how you dress your pizza, it can be more nutritious,” said Patel, who suggests a thin crust, sugarless tomato sauce and vegetables galore as healthier alternatives. “There are no boundaries for a health care professional to enjoy pizza.”

Beyond that, “pizza fuels my mental health and makes me happy, especially when loaded with pepperoni,” she said. “If I’m going to be a pizza connoisseur, then I also need to take care of my physical health by ensuring that I get at least three days of exercise per week and eat nutritiously when I’m not eating pizza.”

She’s among an increasing number of health care professionals, including doctors and nurses, who maintain an active persona on social media, according to bioethics researchers. They share their hobbies and interests with people inside and outside the world of medicine, helping patients and the public become acquainted with the humans behind the scrubs or white coats. Other health care experts limit their posts to medical topics, while some opt for a combination of personal and professional commentaries. Depending on the posts, ethical issues may come into play.

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Susan Kreimer
Susan Kreimer is a New York-based freelance journalist who has followed the landscape of health care since the late 1990s, initially as a staff reporter for major daily newspapers. She writes about breakthrough studies, personal health, and the business of clinical practice. Raised in the Chicago area, she holds a B.A. in Journalism/Mass Communication and French, with minors in German and Russian, from the University of Iowa and an M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.